Work

business & working

Practice & Feedback

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Albert Ip makes a point that practice does not make perfect.

My daughter’s swimming coach puts it very well: "Practice makes your stroke permanent. If you practise bad technique, you just become a more efficient bad swimmer with the bad stroke. It is even more difficult to unlearn the bad strokes."

At an HPT workshop given by ISPI, one of the facilitators told a story about his daughter, who was a gymnastics instructor. This is the story as I remember it. Her main method of teaching was to provide only positive encouragement after each attempt, without criticism. Just before the next attempt, she would give some corrective advice, like "keep your elbows tucked in this time". This method seemed to work quite well.

She took leave from this role, and was replaced by another instructor who believed in immediate feedback. Most other aspects of the program remained the same. After a year of receiving immediate feedback, the gymnasts’ performance was much worse, and some left the program.

The program went into decline.

Many of us in the training and education profession have been told about the merits of immediate feedback, but this one example has stuck with me over the past two years, and I even try to use it with my children. Don’t give criticism, or ways to improve, until the person has the chance to try it again. If you received negative feedback, without being able to show that you could do it better, you would only feel bad about your performance. This makes sense to me anyway.

I still believe that the only way to develop a skill is through practice and feedback, however when and how the feedback is given is extremely important.

A Viable Business Model for Open Source Learning Technologies?

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A while back, on my previous blog, I said that: I believe the next great business model for an elearning entrepreneur is to provide high quality installation and support services for a select group of open source learning systems. Your customers will soon realize that you are not trying to sell them the next upgrade to get more cash, because the software is free. You will be selling your knowledge, experience, and customer service. Many IT departments would be more apt to use open source if they knew that it was strongly supported. Also, there is a lot less conflict of interest when you remove the vendor from the ongoing support.

I just came across a new business venture that has been 16 months in development, Spike Source. This company is positioned to be the Underwriter Laboratories (UL) of Open Source.

SpikeSource offers validated and certified open source stacks (both pure and commercial hybrids) with add-on functional features designed for faster implementation and applications manageability. We offer vendor neutrality and improved developer productivity using open source software. SpikeSource delivers certified product releases, periodic updates, technical support, and managed upgrades.

If you want more details on the business model, download the one hour interview on the Gillmor Gang  with CEO Kim Polese. It’s worth your time. I knew that this model would soon be taken by someone, but what I found interesting in the interview is that there is room for many more of these companies. I would also wager that there is room for companies using this business model in the learning market. So if you’re looking for a new business model, check this one out.

“Blogging is rapidly emerging as a threat to Internet users”

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According to Janus Risk Management, reading this blog may be a risky activity, especially if you work for a corporation. You see, you might actually get some ideas that have not been pre-approved by the powers that be. According to the summary of their latest research document ($1,065.00 for a site license), Janus feels that:

  1. Blogging is rapidly emerging as a threat to Internet users.
  2. While blogs have a legitimate use, online journals pose serious threats to enterprise confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
  3. This presentation is designed for distribution to employees to raise their awareness of the importance of using extreme caution if and when it becomes necessary to visit blogs as part of the employee’s job performance.

But don’t be alarmed. Janus provides corporations with three Blog Acceptable Use Policy options to reduce their risks:

  1. ZERO TOLERANCE
  2. LIMITED USE
  3. PERMISSIONED USE

So for all of you who were concerned that working in the knowledge economy might actually require that you think for yourself; never fear. The corporate elite are ensuring that you won’t have to.

If you continue to read this blog, remember that you have been warned ;-)

Via Wirearchy.

Are we entering a post-competitive era?

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LearnNB has taken on the theme of collaborating to compete, showing that organisations in this small region are open to collaboration for business ventures. Dan James, CEO of SilverOrange in Charlottetown takes this one step further, and states that his company has no competitors:

Stating that we have no competitors is not a proud “we are better than everyone else” declaration. It is also not stating that we are the only ones who work in this area of expertise. It is simply saying that we see those who also work in web development as our peers not as our competitors.

Dan and his colleagues are an excellent, local example of collaboration at work. Making collaboration work takes real conviction, but I think that it is the most sustainable business strategy there is.

Terror in the Ad World

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The Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) talks about the new marketplace of the Internet, where customers no longer want to be considered as markets but as individuals. Some people in business regard this kind of idea as much too radical, and stick to more traditional perspectives of markets – just read any business plan. From Laudably/Renewal, I came across this reference to a Wired magazine interview (reported by David Kirkpatrick of Fortune) with Jeff Bezos of Amazon, where he discusses the value of TV advertising:

Bezos explained why Amazon doesn’t advertise on TV. It tried television advertising in two markets as a test not long ago but that didn’t drive enough additional sales to justify the costs. He said the company concluded it was better to use that money to continue driving prices lower and increase free shipping.

He doesn’t worry people won’t find out when Amazon offers something desirable. "Word of mouth is becoming more powerful," he said. "If you offer a great service people find out about it. We’re getting information perfection on the Internet." He predicted that for all businesses, the amount of money spent on marketing and advertising will decline while the amount spent developing better products or services will increase as a result. "If the successful recipe is spending 70% of your money shouting about your service and 30% producing a better service, over the next 20 years that will reverse."



"Is that a bad thing for print magazines that depend on advertising?" Anderson asked nervously. Bezos did not console him. "Terror would be a helpful response," he said cheerfully. I shifted uncomfortably in my own seat.

Amazon is proving that marketing ain’t what it used to be, and the new Medium has obsolesced the darlings of the broadcast model – marketing & advertising. Not everyone gets it yet, but eBay, Amazon and Google do. The rest will eventually catch on or die. I think that the same goes for small business. Don’t spend your time with hit or miss marketing of your wares at trade shows. Focus on better products and services, and then let the ‘Net effect take over. It may take some time to reach the Connectors, but when you do, you will be ready with good products and services, not just marketing hype.

 

Plus ça change …

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Rick Bruner, of Business Blog Consulting, notes that enterprise vendors, like Canada’s own OpenText are moving into the bloggging space to sell their products. I have the same question as Rick though; ” … but I don’t understand why any company would pay $50,000 and $150,000, according to the article, for blog software ...” It seems to be that the hype cycle around blogging is growing, and companies will spend a lot of money on “blog” software without first doing their homework. Like learning management systems (LMS) and later learning content management systems (LCMS), some organisations will spend a significant amount on “enterprise blog applications” only to find out that it’s not so much the technology as the processes and implementation that are really important.

My advice is stick to the open source (e.g. Drupal) or ASP’s (e.g. TypePad) for your blogging pilot projects. After a good test period you can decide whether to adopt a platform, modify an OSS one, or purchase an enterprise version for big bucks. With so many low cost options for blogging, there is an existing solution for most organisational requirements.

Future Business Models

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In many discussions around business model innovation today, three companies are consistently mentioned – Google, Amazon and eBay [no links here, as everyone knows where to find them]. Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, is working on a number of new projects, and if you want to get an indicator of future business models in the digital economy, then consider his areas of concentration:

Since June we have funded efforts in a number of areas:


* Microfinance

* Bottom-up Media

* Open Source

* Intellectual Property

* Voting

* Social Software

The Omidyar Network has some great partners, including Creative Commons and Source Forge.

Via Kathleen.

The Innovation Summit 2004

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AlwaysOn 2004, The Innovation Summit, took place at Stanford University in July of this year, and the sessions are available for free viewing. I took the time to listen to a 56 minute panel discussion on Silicon Valley, Anywhere – featuring venture capitalists and IT executives. I found this to be a frank discussion about the perils of developing and selling new IT products and services in the global marketplace.

Daniel Gatti, CEO of Big Bangwidth, talked about conducting R&D in Canada. To summarize, he said that the centres of excellence developed in Canada are a real boon to technology companies, and that doing development in Canada makes a lot of sense for any IT company.

Joe Schoendorf, of Accel Partners, also made some interesting comments from the VC perspective. He said that if you are introducing a new technology to the market, then you should look at the USA, China and Europe – normally in that order. Europe is slower to adopt new technologies than either the US or China. He also said that the key to innovation is getting products to market, and that as an investor he looks at two things:

  1. The strength of the core team, and
  2. How fast the company will get its product to market

Many people forget that there is only one measurable indicator when it comes to innovation, and that is improving the livelihood of people. If you do not generate wealth from new products and services, then all of the R&D in world is of little value.

There are many other presentations available for viewing, so sit back with a glass of wine (as I did) and listen to the dialogue.

Via Engineering Technologies Canada.

The Talent Myth

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In a recent ChangeThis manifesto, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, states that “The talent myth assumes that people make organizations smart. More often than not, it’s the other way around.” He cites Enron and WorldCom has examples of the continuing quest for the best individual talent gone awry; while Southwest Airlines and Wal*Mart are companies with inclusive, and more effective business cultures. This search for individuals with star potential, at the expense of the organisation, is what Gladwell calls the “Talent Myth”.

They were there looking for people who had the talent to think outside the box. It never occurred to them that, if everyone had to think outside the box, maybe it was the box that needed fixing.

To me, this is just another example of businesses grabbing on to the latest management gimmick to solve all of their problems. It also shows how human performance technology would have been a better approach for these companies in managing their workforce. HPT looks at the alignment between the culture and business operations, as well as the role of individuals within the system. As James Hite describes HPT, ” …human performance is placed in context along with other subsystems that constitute the presence of the organization.” It’s the relationship between individual performers (especially the “stars”) and all of the other components that has to be examined and understood. Or as Earl Mardle says, “Effective Executives are not a product that we can make, but an emergent property of correctly functioning organisations.”

Gladwell’s stories of narcissistic star candidates, many being paid more than they were worth, are interesting to view from a performance analysis perspective. A cursory look would show that this misalignment of rewards and consequences could cause systemic problems. HPT may not be glamorous, but it works.

Going Euro

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A few months back I had mentioned in an interview that New Brunswick (read: Atlantic Canada) is uniquely situated to take advantage of the European market.

“New Brunswick’s history and its location on the east coast of Canada make us able to bridge the gap between Europe and the Americas, serving the needs of both,” states Harold Jarche, of Jarche Consulting. Indeed, New Brunswick is a cultural melting pot of French, English, First Nations (similar to Native American cultures), and other ethnic contributions that combine to create a rich cultural soil. Without doubt, the province seems to exude one very distinct message: We are diverse, but we are one, and we are open for business.

There is some focus on the European market but this is miniscule compared to our single-minded fixation with that marketplace to our South. I’m not saying that we should avoid US markets, but that we are not taking advantage of our “middle power” position. Dave Pollard has recently presented some statistics that reinforce my belief that we should be putting more emphasis on developing solid business relationships in Europe. Dave shows how Canadian employment rates are far surpassing US rates and:

Secondly, courtesy Yahoo, are updated charts showing the continued weakness of the US dollar against both the Euro and the Canadian dollar. Against almost every other currency the picture is the same. The declines reflect the fundamental weakness of the US economy, and especially international concerns over the crushing US debt load and continued dependence both on willingness of foreign creditors to advance more credit to the US and on cheap energy costs.

Our reliance on a cheap Canadian dollar relative to the Greenback is coming to a close, and it would be a good business strategy to look across the pond for some new business opportunities.

Further to what Dave Pollard has said, an article on Jeremy Rifkin’s book The European Dream, was recently published by Knowledge@Wharton (requires free subscription). Discussing Rifkin’s book, the author states;

Europe has become the “New World.” The European Union, with its embrace of former Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe, is now a continent-wide system. Even more revolutionary is its internal organization. The EU is on track to becoming a unified realm where national borders are little more than vestigial remains of the bad old days of nationalism. Economic fault lines and conflicting religious and social ideologies are disappearing too. A sense of unity and identity is rising, especially among the young, not seen since the spread of Christendom throughout Europe during the Middle Ages.

There are many indicators that this is fertile ground for business relationships:

Rifkin highlights a recent development in the Information Revolution to illustrate this cooperative mindset in action. He cites the example of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, which linked its 2,700 desktop PCs together using a computer grid to give the firm the capacity of a supercomputer without having to buy one. Grid technology is being embraced throughout Europe, which has seized a commanding lead over the United States in its implementation.